A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law

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Yaron has suggested that all provisions of the codes mentioning

the term originated in the legislative or judicial activities of the ruler,

not in ordinary court practice, but there is no independent evidence

for this premise.^52

4.3 Gender and Age

4.3.1 The archetypal “person,” as far as the legal systems were con-

cerned, was a male head of household. Women as a class had no

special status in the law; rather, all subordinate members of a house-

hold, whether wives or male or female children, had more limited

rights and duties. Legal capacity was therefore more a function of

one’s position in the household than of one’s sex or age, and the

patriarchal household was by no means the sole configuration pos-

sible. A household might be headed by a woman, for example, a

widow or divorcée, either alone or together with her adult sons; or

brothers might together form a joint household (see 6.3.1.5 below);

or a single person, male or female, might be entirely independent.

4.3.2 No free person was entirely lacking in legal capacity, except

perhaps a young child. (There is no evidence for a specific age of

legal majority.) However, the names of public office holders are exclu-

sively male.

4.3.3 The access of women to the courts, as litigants or witnesses,

has been discussed above. Their rights and responsibilities in other

areas of law, such as property, contract, debt, or crime, are discussed

below under the appropriate heading.

4.3.4 A woman could enjoy an independent status by reason of her

profession or vocation. Within the former category fell the taverness,

wetnurse, and prostitute, whose professional activities were regu-

lated.^53 Within the latter were a special category of women dedicated

to a god, the most important of which was the nadìtum (see 9 below).

(^52) Eshnunna.. ., 142–43. Buccelati, discussing evidence outside the law codes, sug-
gests that a mu“kènumwas a subsistence farmer who owned only the inalienable fam-
ily estate (a “homesteader”); anyone who owned land in excess thereof (which was
therefore marketable) was an awìlum(“Homesteader.. .”).
(^53) Taverness: LE 41; LH 108–9, 111; wetnurse: LE 32; LH 194; prostitute: LL
27, 30.
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